Remember 5 years ago when “Breaking the Phalanx” was released?
Remember the furor and uproar it caused over the possibility that the vaunted
division HQs might
go away?
Now that 5 years and a few generals have left, let’s look at where we are today:
1 Light BDE converted to wheels at Ft. Lewis
1 Heavy BDE about to convert to wheel at Ft. Lewis
1 Heavy BDE as a test-bed for digital technologies at Ft. Hood
1 Light BDE in Alaska with a DIV HQ in New York that wears a different patch
2 Heavy BDEs at Ft. Riley that ostensibly belong to 2 different divisions in
Germany
but that in reality take their orders from the “training div HQ” of the 24th
on post with them
1 Heavy BDE at Ft. Benning whose parent HQ is at Ft. Stewart
1 Heavy BDE in Colorado whose DIV HQ is at Ft. Hood
Are we seeing a trend here?
After all the hemming and hawing about how the division will never go away, what
we have is a
Brigade-based army.
4 Mech has 1 BDE in another state and 1 BDE in a state of flux as new
technologies are rolled out
1 Mech and 1 Armor have oceans between their brigades
24 Mech only has the state of Georgia between their two different pieces
Do you really think that the IBCT in Washington is ready to go to war with it’s
DIV HQ in Hawaii?
How about the next IBCT at Ft. Lewis, whose DIV HQ is in Korea?
Do you think 172d Inf BDE really cares what happens at Ft. Drum?
We have 3 out of 10 divisions that have all three BDEs on the same post: 82 ABN,
101 AASL, 1 CAV.
And those three spend most of their days with at least one brigade deployed
somewhere.
MacGregor was beat up, abused, castigated, and reviled.
You know what else?
He was right.